Outside Of Time - Part III
Part III A few days later P-90 considered the events that had led him to having half his body being crammed into the engine, trying desperately to reach a sparking, seemingly insignificant bulb at the back of the mechanism. Right now the ship was running on TARDIS fuel, but as always Mapp considered this function a waste of his TARDIS abilities. P-90 knew of course that the designer had indeed put in an engine compartment into the design, as a backup power source. However with the many things that needed TARDIS power from the ship, the engine meant there was one less struggle for the aging timelord tech. Now it had broken down again. Mapp had immediately gotten onto his case about it. P-90 still remembered the hellish conversation of the morning. In one corner of the room their new guests sat hugging the now cold teas graciously offered to them, not drinking them and still watching each other. At the bar CJ was handing out the morning tea and Tey standing in the small kitchen whipping up pancakes. P-90 sat at the bar, ashen faced and tired but grateful as CJ gave him a wonderfully sweet tea. The door to the bar banged open in the usual Mapp fashion as the captain appeared. “Morn. Mapp.” CJ glanced up and smiled at him but the captain ignored her choosing to park his ass in the stool next to the only other timelord on the ship. “I need you to fix the Engine.” P-90 glanced up at him and frowned, still struggling to make decent conversation. “What’s wrong with the engine?” He stifled a yawn and took a sip of tea as Mapp glared at P-90. “It’s busted. Of course that’s what I meant by bloody fix it!” P-90 gave a disgusted look to Mapp as CJ raised an eyebrow shocked. “Jeez Mapp, what crawled up your end and died this morning?” CJ giggled at P-90 but Mapp barely flickered. “Look just go and fix it alright? This is the third time something’s screwed up on this ship in less than a week.” P-90 snorted and gave what he thought was a knowing look to Mapp. “The ship is old.” Mapp frowned at P-90. “Yeah I know. But it still doesn’t pan out right. We get maybe one or two breakdowns a month. Not three within a week. And don’t look at me like that. You look like your gonna come onto me.” With that the captain swiped his tea and marched off to bug another crewmember. P-90 sighed and glanced at CJ as he drained his tea. “Well, sorry Cee. Gotta eat n run again.” He smiled apologetically at her as she leaned forward. “Hey P-90, before you go…could you tell me why Mapp is so pissed?” P-90 stopped adjusting his coat and looked at CJ. “He’s pissed because his crappy ship is breaking down too much. This is the third time this week.” CJ leaned her elbows on the counter giving a look to P-90. “The third? Why the third?” “Well the first was Monday. the navigation had melted. Bloody melted.” P-90 shook his head and began to readjust his coat, as though baffled. “The second was life support. Some kind of bug had gotten in. that was Wednesday.” CJ nodded to him. “And now, Friday the engines busted.” “Yeah.” P-90 turned to look at the guests and then back at CJ. “Hey listen, I wouldn’t normally ask, but could you take over helping our new guests? Im so busy now.” CJ smiled and barely held back from bouncing. “Sure P-90!” He smiled again at her and began to leave the room. “Thanks Cee!” P-90 pulled himself out of the engine compartment, his coat dotted with spots of oil and grease. Muttering to himself about dry-cleaning he slammed the hatch on the engine and moved towards a console almost hidden in wiring. “God I hope this works. I need a shower.” P-90 blinked for a moment, remembering the engine room was almost certainly empty. “You are indeed in need of a shower.” He jumped, shocked. Twisting around he came face to face with the woman they’d rescued. “Oh, uh…I didn’t think anyone was here.” He looked around expectantly, almost waiting to see her burly companions coming into view. “You’re here on your own?” The woman nodded, her face was blank, and it unnerved P-90 a lot, seeing not one expression manifest itself on her face. “Denzel and Nexus are resting.” P-90 blinked before his mind shuffled these facts. “Oh, Denzel and Nexus are…” “My brothers yes. I am Aife.” P-90 gave a nervous laugh. “Im sorry I forgot to ask…” She ignored that comment and moved to inspect the engine. “Impressive. I was told this is a…. TARDIS?” P-90 moved back towards the console, a large lever gleamed in the lighting. “Well the ship is, this is the secondary engine. Im firing it up now.” He pulled down the lever to the sound of gnashing gears. Slowly the ship came alive again as the engine roared into life. “There. All fixed.” He beamed at his handiwork, now of course the TARDIS power would be rerouted to secondary systems. Like weaponry, defense and other things that Mapp considered second nature to life support and speed. P-90 turned to ask if Aife wanted escorting anywhere when he realised that once again the engine room was empty. He broke out in Goosebumps but ignored them, figuring she must have slipped past while he was distracted by the noise. He scooped up his tools, this job done and moved to the door leading to the corridor. His crew card was denied and P-90 frowned. It happened sometimes but on the second and third try he was also refused access. It had worked a few hours ago! Sighing he dropped his toolkit and fished around in his oil splattered pocket. Pulling out his sonic screwdriver he opened the door manually and swept his tools back into his arms. Despite having the door lock on him he began whistling as he walked the familiar corridors to his room. Up ahead was a plasma cannon, installed very early in the cantina as a defense against armed intruders. As he advanced on the dusty weapon he thought he saw it twitch, but P-90 was a primary crewmember, with access to everything. Ignoring it he continued to walk forward until horrified he saw the cannon rear up from its rest and point straight at him. Instinctively he raised his toolkit, shielding his two hearts as the cannon gave off 2 short bursts, sending him hurling back into the opposite wall of the corridor. P-90 impacted hard and slumped to the floor…unmoving. Hitting a wall was a very painful experience, especially for a timelord. Mapp knew the pain; he knew a lot of pain. At that thought an image of the citadel loomed in his minds eye, but he shook it away. Returning to the unconscious form of P-90, lying on the bed as CJ patched up his bruises and cuts. What had happened in that corridor? The computer registered shots had been fired but refused to say where or which terminal had fired, they’d had to do floor by floor sweeps until Tey and Jelgate had came across P-90. Mapp lifted a hand and pulled it down his face. How much had he slept lately? Not a wink by the dark circles under his eyes, he couldn’t understand why his beloved ship was rebelling. It had never done this; never had so many things happened in such a short space of time. His eyes followed CJ as she moved around P-90, patching him up. “How bad is it?” CJ looked up at Mapp with a look of relief. “A little burning, a lot of bruises and a concussion.” Mapp smirked, he’d be all right but he’d have a hell of a headache. “Good. Any idea when he’ll wake up?” CJ shook her head. “To be honest if he hadn’t have held his toolbox above his heart he would have been Swiss cheese. He was lucky that case was an ultra tough polymer. There’s nothing to do right now. You look like hell.” “I feel like it Ceej.” Mapp sighed and trooped out, defeated, back to the bar. These malfunctions had gone beyond minor annoyances now. They’d hurt his friend, his gawd damn brother. P-90 was, at the moment the second of 3 timelords Mapp knew lived, the captain himself included. The rest had perished or gone mad and killed themselves. They couldn’t be the only ones left could they? Slipping behind the bar still felt wrong to him, he was so used to being served. But CJ was tending to P-90 and Wolfax was steering the ship as best he could with the wacky systems. Mapp listened dully to one of the crewmembers latest CD’s on the speakers. Leon Jackson – Creative. The bar was sombre, people reflecting on how close they came to losing their friend. He sneered at himself. What had happened to the captain who took charge? The timelord that the crew had looked up to? What the hell had happened to the fun times? They’d died little by little. He didn’t dare remember how many people he’d lured into the ugly web of the cantina. The last adventure had certainly put them on the map. Saviour they called him. Mapp snorted as he filled his glass with dark rum and took a sip of the bitter fuel. He wasn’t the saviour of anything. He reflected darkly on the events of Gallifrey, for months now he’d tried to shy away from thoughts about that terrible adventure. He’d logged his report on the computer, deactivated Susie’s profile card and locked down her room. Harder still in those months had been to deal with P-90. For a while after her death he’d been the worst to deal with. Hell Mapp wasn’t stupid, he’d known there was something electrical in the air when those two worked. She had always insisted on P-90 fixing the bar pumps or helping her shift barrels. Mapp had always allowed it, now he wished he’d been harder on the two of them, perhaps then P-90 wouldn’t have been hurt so much. Weather he showed it or not, the guy was still emotional about her. He sighed, thinking about the follies of being intimate with humans. Taking another sip Mapp realised it would be just a few short hours until they unloaded his unwanted passengers, they’d had to slow the cantina down some, adding time to their journey and they'd also had to halt the stripping of the ship numerous times to deal with the malfunctions. Judging by the report Winged Pegasus had given him, they’d barely stripped it of anything. Shaking his head and Pondering the weird behaviour of his ship Mapp sipped his drink again. He failed to notice his three passengers missing in his gloomy mood.